Dreamweaver MX: The Missing Manual

Additional Data Sources

So far, you’ve been using Dreamweaver’s dynamic page-building features to retrieve information from databases for building catalog pages, product detail pages, and other pages that require database-generated content. But at times, you’ll want to collect data from other sources and add them to your page. For example, when someone logs into a site (see the Log In User server behavior on page 731), her user name travels along with her from page to page in what’s called a session variable. Using the Bindings panel, you can capture this session name and then use it on a Web page.

Similarly, you can create cookies to store small pieces of information on a person’s computer—such as a counter tracking how many times he’s been to your site—and use Dreamweaver’s Bindings panel to add that information to a Web page.

The Bindings panel lets you access these sources of data as well as information submitted from form fields and embedded in URLs. Each server model understands different types of dynamic data. But most recognize the ones listed below.

Note

ASP.NET Note

Dreamweaver doesn’t let you add any of these additional data sources to the Bindings panel.

Regardless of the type of dynamic data you wish to add, the process is pretty much the same. It differs only among server models.

For ASP

1. Click the + button in the Bindings panel, and depending on the type of dynamic data you’re interested in, select either Request Variable, Session Variable, or Application Variable.

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